McNeese Pulls Big Upset Over Clemson

March Madness provides us with magic every single year — and 2025 is no different.

The No. 12 seed McNeese Cowboys upended the heavily favored No. 5 Clemson Tigers by a score of 69-67 on Thursday afternoon. McNeese Head Coach Will Wade was triumphantly hugging administration members, fans, family members, friends, and practically every person he could see once the final buzzer sounded.

A jubilant Cowboys team thoroughly outplayed Clemson in a game that doesn’t tell the full story. McNeese was up by 20+ points comfortably for the majority of the game.

The quickness and activity level on the offensive glass totally took Clemson out of its normal rhythm. McNeese was a far smaller team size-wise — yet outrebounded Clemson 43-36. This included nabbing 18 offensive boards. The Cowboys also accrued seven steals and six blocks (Clemson had zero blocks).

Brandon Murray led all scorers with 21 points coming off the McNeese bench. Quadir Copeland chipped in with 16, and Christian Shumate scored 13 points (a handful of which came on some vicious putback dunks).

Clemson was led by senior guard Jaeden Zackery. He scored 24 points and practically kept Clemson within reach singlehandedly. Chase Hunter had a very quiet 21 points with much of them coming once hte game was already decided. All-SEC forward Ian Schieffelin was abysmal – scoring one point on 0/4 from the field.

Credit Clemson somewhat — as the Tigers were down 22 with 7:45 left. The eventually cut it to 3 with 10.6 seconds left. However, it was too big of a hole to climb out of — and McNeese will now take on No. 4 Purdue on Saturday.